State Coulomb’s law in terms of how the electrostatic force changes with the distance between two objects.

Calculate the electrostatic force between two charged point forces, such as electrons or protons.

Compare the electrostatic force to the gravitational attraction for a proton and an electron; for a human and the Earth.

This NASA image of Arp 87 shows the result of a strong gravitational attraction between two galaxies. In contrast, at the subatomic level, the electrostatic attraction between two objects, such as an electron and a proton, is far greater than their mutual attraction due to gravity. (credit: NASA/HST)

Through the work of scientists in the late 18th century, the main features of the
electrostatic force —the existence of two types of charge, the observation that like charges repel, unlike charges attract, and the decrease of force with distance—were eventually refined, and expressed as a mathematical formula. The mathematical formula for the electrostatic force is called
Coulomb’s law after the French physicist Charles Coulomb (1736–1806), who performed experiments and first proposed a formula to calculate it.

The electrostatic force is a vector quantity and is expressed in units of newtons. The force is understood to be along the line joining the two charges. (See
[link] .)

Although the formula for Coulomb’s law is simple, it was no mean task to prove it. The experiments Coulomb did, with the primitive equipment then available, were difficult. Modern experiments have verified Coulomb’s law to great precision. For example, it has been shown that the force is inversely proportional to distance between two objects squared
F∝1/r2size 12{ left (F prop {1} slash {r rSup { size 8{2} } } right )} {} to an accuracy of 1 part in
1016size 12{"10" rSup { size 8{"16"} } } {} . No exceptions have ever been found, even at the small distances within the atom.

How strong is the coulomb force relative to the gravitational force?

Compare the electrostatic force between an electron and proton separated by
0.530×10−10msize 12{0 "." "530" times "10" rSup { size 8{ - "10"} } m} {} with the gravitational force between them. This distance is their average separation in a hydrogen atom.

Strategy

To compare the two forces, we first compute the electrostatic force using Coulomb’s law,
F=k|q1q2|r2size 12{F=k { {q rSub { size 8{1} } q rSub { size 8{2} } } over {r rSup { size 8{2} } } } } {} . We then calculate the gravitational force using Newton’s universal law of gravitation. Finally, we take a ratio to see how the forces compare in magnitude.

Solution

Entering the given and known information about the charges and separation of the electron and proton into the expression of Coulomb’s law yields

The charges are opposite in sign, so this is an attractive force. This is a very large force for an electron—it would cause an acceleration of
8.99×1022m/s2size 12{9 "." "00" times "10" rSup { size 8{"22"} } {m} slash {s rSup { size 8{2} } } } {} (verification is left as an end-of-section problem).The gravitational force is given by Newton’s law of gravitation as:

This is also an attractive force, although it is traditionally shown as positive since gravitational force is always attractive. The ratio of the magnitude of the electrostatic force to gravitational force in this case is, thus,

This is a remarkably large ratio! Note that this will be the ratio of electrostatic force to gravitational force for an electron and a proton at any distance (taking the ratio before entering numerical values shows that the distance cancels). This ratio gives some indication of just how much larger the Coulomb force is than the gravitational force between two of the most common particles in nature.

fullerene is a bucky ball aka Carbon 60 molecule. It was name by the architect Fuller. He design the geodesic dome. it resembles a soccer ball.

Tarell

what is the actual application of fullerenes nowadays?

Damian

That is a great question Damian. best way to answer that question is to Google it. there are hundreds of applications for buck minister fullerenes, from medical to aerospace. you can also find plenty of research papers that will give you great detail on the potential applications of fullerenes.

Tarell

Join the discussion...

what is the Synthesis, properties,and applications of carbon nano chemistry

Yeah, it is a pain to say the least. You basically have to heat the substarte up to around 1000 degrees celcius then pass phosphene gas over top of it, which is explosive and toxic by the way, under very low pressure.